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Tuesday, August 23, 2005
Editorials: SRP loan repayment
It’s good that Cebu City Government officials are starting to admit the city’s financial woes as it pays the amortization of what has now become a P6.3-billion loan for the South Reclamation Project (SRP).
This is better than painting a totally positive picture of the project, like what Mayor Tomas Osmeña has been doing the past years, which resulted in Cebuanos not being able to objectively assess the undertaking’s impact on their lives.
The point is, repayment of the loan is starting to drain City Hall’s coffers, and the situation is expected to worsen next year and the years after that especially if selling the SRP to prospective investors gets stalled for one reason or another.
With the financial crunch, it would not be difficult to realize that one area that is and will continue to be affected most is City Hall’s delivery of basic services.
But while City Hall officials are admitting the city’s current financial crunch, they have not been clear about why the situation has deteriorated to this point.
Of course, it would be wrong to expect officials, especially the proponents of the project, to admit their failings but it would not also be good to totally accept their use of Talisay City as scapegoat.
While Talisay City needs to be criticized for staking a late territorial claim to a portion of the SRP, by the same token the project’s proponents could not also wash their hands off the failure to ascertain well Cebu City’s ownership of the reclaimed areas.
More than that, instead of talking the problem out with Talisay officials for a speedy solution to the impasse, Cebu City officials chose a confrontational stance that not only led to a hardening of positions but also complicated the problem.
What this means is that the failure to be clear on the reasons that Cebu City’s money woes have come about negated the effort to admit the financial crunch.
Dumpit should return
One of the easily observable reactions to the rumored wounding of SPO1 Adonis Dumpit were the ones made by Cebu City Police Director Melvin Gayotin and Criminal Intelligence and Investigation Bureau Chief Pablo Labra II.
Both have denied the rumor, in effect acting like spokesmen of Dumpit.
What Gayotin and Labra should have done, instead of speaking in Dumpit’s behalf, was to tell the latter to return to Cebu from Davao Oriental and do the denying himself, that is, if he really does not want to place his superiors in an awkward position.
(August 23, 2005 issue)
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